


Keep on Ticking

by The_Female_Gaymer



Category: Grand Theft Auto V
Genre: Anesthesia, Comfort/Angst, Fluff, Heart Attacks, Hospitalization, Hospitals, Light Angst, M/M, Multi, Rampaging Trevor, Surgery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-25 22:55:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7550431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Female_Gaymer/pseuds/The_Female_Gaymer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Feel that?</p><p>It’s still beating. </p><p>It may not be what it used to be, but it’s still going. </p><p>I’m still here right now. Focus on that, and not what could have been. Be glad, because I’m still here, and I’m not going anywhere.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keep on Ticking

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Ned Luke's little visit to the hospital for his own heart palpitations. 
> 
> For the record, I don't know jack shit about medical procedures for stuff like this. I probably got everything wrong. For this fic, though, I don't particularly care.

He’d told them not to call a fucking ambulance. The nearest hospital was fifteen miles away, and the bill was going to skyrocket because of the mileage adding up. “Just get the car,” he’d begged, but his family wasn’t having any of it, pushing him to sit. He wanted to shout at them, but he couldn’t catch his breath, and the world was spinning, and he found himself growing numb. They forced him to lay down and wait patiently for the emergency crew to get there, to calm down, else he should aggravate his condition. Michael simmered quietly with his arms folded, trying to even out his breathing.

Eventually, the paramedics arrived. They performed what was required of them with practiced hands, assessing Michael’s condition and determining that, even though he was probably alright, it would be a good idea to get him to the hospital to look further into what might have caused him this ailment in the first place. “Likely stress related,” they told him. “But we want to be certain.”

Michael only groaned. Great. More hospital bills. The only way he could be more offended was if--

“Oh, fuck you!” Michael wheezed when he saw the words above the ambulance doors. Senior Care. His family ended up having a good laugh about that, despite their concern for their father. Tracey teased him about it the entire way to the hospital, to his grief, as Amanda and Jimmy took the car to meet them there. Eventually, she got him in a good enough mood to joke along, but when the nurses joined in, he got angry again.

“I ain’t that old,” he grumbled discontentedly around the sounds of everyone else’s giggling. “Forty eight ain’t that old.”

“Well, I mean,” Tracey interjected, “You  _ are  _ pretty much over the hill, and let’s be honest, all that smoking you used to do probably didn’t help.”

They wheeled him out of the ambulance into Mount Zonah Medical, and took him into a heart specialist. It didn’t take long for him to spot something the other doctors had missed upon first getting to him; Michael was going into cardiac arrest. It was very minor, almost negligible, but a coronary angioplasty needed to be performed immediately to prevent serious damage. Nothing life threatening, just a widening of one of his clogged arteries. Michael was mortified, as well as his family. Cardiac arrest? Sure, his health wasn’t the best, but was it really  _ that  _ bad?

Just enough, the doctor said. Just enough.

The procedure would take little time at all, and Michael would be out and about in the world of Los Santos again within the next few days. They wanted to keep him in the hospital to monitor his condition, despite the simplicity of the procedure. Even if he had wanted to, Michael couldn’t exactly refuse.

So there he lay, in a hospital bed in a monitoring room, his family by his side. It couldn’t get any worse, he supposed. He was spending time with his wife and children while the doctors prepared the operating room, talking. Amanda and Tracey were pleasant, and it was nice. Even if Jimmy was on that stupid phone of his. He turned over to look at him at the sight of particularly vigorous typing.

“What the hell are you doing on that thing?” Michael inquired.

“Telling everyone on Lifeinvader that you’re getting heart surgery,” Jimmy informed him matter-of-factly without glancing up from the device. “I tagged you in it if you want to add something before you go in the O.R. Like, you know, a prayer, or a last will, or--”

“Jimmy!” Amanda exclaimed, giving him an offended look. Tracey didn’t even grace that with a response, save for a rolling of the eyes. “Your father’s going to be fine. Don’t you even insinuate that he won’t.”

“Hey, heart surgery’s dangerous,” Jimmy pointed out.

Michael leaned towards his son. “Jesus, Jim, they ain’t even cutting in to my heart  _ or  _ my chest. It’s just a coronary angioplasty. I won’t have a damn scar to tell about. The tube goes up through your arm. How long ago did you post the status?”

“As soon as the doc told us what was going on. Now I’m just replying to concerned comments and well-wishers. It’s funny how many people you don’t normally talk to are suddenly concerned about your health. But I guess that’s just the magic of social media-- you make friends online that normally wouldn’t give a shit about you in real life.”

Michael snickered. “Ain’t that the fucking truth. Send them my regards, I guess.”

“Sure thing, pop.”

A few seconds of silence passed over them, before the head surgeon and a few other nurses entered the room.

“Are you ready, Mr. De Santa?” the surgeon asked. “You’ll be in and out in no time at all.”

Michael sat up a little, hating the stupid gown they’d put him in. “Yeah, sure. Let’s just get it over with.” He looked around him with a disgusted look. “Hospitals depress the shit out of me.”

His bed was lowered, and they began to wheel him through the halls. Amanda and the children all waved him goodbye as he left, gathering their things to head back to the house. He was somewhat irked that they weren’t going to stick around, but they were expecting company that day, and they couldn’t exactly cancel after all the preparations they had made. He somewhat understood. Somewhat.

“I assure you, we’ll do everything we can to make your stay in Mount Zonah as pleasant as we can,” one of the nurses wheeling his bed said to him. “Is there anything you need before we get into the O.R?”

Michael thought about it for a second, before shaking his head.

“Nah. Let’s just get it over with.”

The nurses nodded their affirmative, continuing towards the looming double-doors. As they rounded the corner by the entrance doors that separated the operating rooms from the rest of the hospital, there was loud shouting, heading towards the door. The head surgeon look at the nurses, confused.

“Is that George again?”

“That’s not George’s voice.”

Michael furrowed his brow, listening in. A moment later, horrified realization crossed his features. He knew that gruff shouting from anywhere.

“Fuck,” he hissed, hitting one of the nurses on the arm. “It’s Trevor. Keep going, get to the O.R. He probably saw my son’s Lifeinvader. Go, the guy’s psycho!”

The nurses and the doctor obeyed without question, hurrying their steps towards their destination. “You’re certain?” one asked timidly.

“Yeah,” Michael confirmed. His chest was beginning to hurt, his elevated heart rate not helping with his condition at all. “Look, I don’t know what he’s doing out there to try to get in here, and I don’t want to know. Just get someone to calm him down, and…”

Michael furrowed his brow.

“And let him in to see me when the operation’s done, I guess. He won’t be placated otherwise. God, what a fucking asshole.”

The head surgeon glanced behind them at the sound of the doors bursting open back where they had been before. They were just out of the crazed man’s sight, and they began to run with the bed.

“Michael! Where the fuck-- get off of me!  _ Michael _ !”

“Jesus,” he laughed nervously to Michael, “he, uh, he really must care about you.”

“Well,” Michael half-joked, looking back worriedly, “I died on him once before. He doesn’t want a repeat of that shit.”

Before the doctor could ask him what he meant, there was a skidding behind them, and a clatter as something hit into one of the carts filled with tools nearby. Michael angled his head back just far enough to see Trevor on his hands and knees, struggling to his feet as legions of doctors and security chased after him.

“Stay the fuck back, Trevor!” Michael warned. “I don’t want you gettin’ hurt!”

Trevor’s gaze shot up at the sound of Michael’s voice, and his wild glare only became more determined. He leapt to his feet, but security was there, binding his arms behind his back and keeping him there. He strained against them towards Michael, looking more like a beast than a man. Michael’s heart pounded more strongly than it had in the past few hours at the sight of the panic and the desperation in Trevor’s eyes.

“Michael!” he screamed, and his feet skidded on the linoleum floor as he struggled and kicked against the security dragging him away. “Michael, you fucking shit!”

The O.R. doors were just before them now. Michael was straining to look back to see Trevor. He shouted instead at the security guards holding him back.

“Don’t hurt him!” he implored of them, and the nurses were holding him down now so he wouldn’t tumble out of the bed. He thrashed around as he screamed. “Trevor, just fucking wait outside! Don’t hurt him!”

“Michael!” Trevor’s teeth were clenched uncomfortably tight. “I swear to God, if you don’t come out of there alive, I’ll… I’ll--!”

The rest was lost to him as he was wheeled into the O.R, the doors closed and locked behind them. There was just enough time before the doctors pushed him to lay down for him to see-- and hear-- Trevor collide with the door, breath condensing in panicked huffs against the glass. His usually bright eyes were glassy and dull, and his frame was shaking.

“Don’t make them escort him out,” Michael implored the doctors around him. “The fucker’s only dangerous if you hurt him. Just tell him to wait.”

The head surgeon shook his head, staring back at the door with wide, terrified eyes, which seemed to calm as Trevor was escorted away at long last. “I… I’ll see what I can do, if that’s what you really want. But that’s-- that guy’s--”

“A fucking psycho?” Michael laughed as the IV needle was pressed into his arm, wincing only slightly at the pain. He’d endured far worse pain. “That’s an understatement, doc. But he’s my best friend.”

“Boy, you sure know how to pick ‘em.”

Michael leaned back, already feeling the anesthetic beginning to take effect. “He’s been a good friend. I… I ain’t been as good to him as I… I could have been.”

“He… seems like the loyal type.” The head surgeon pursed his lips together. “Loyal to a fault.”

“Yeah…” Michael was finding it difficult to keep his eyes open at that point. “He’s… pretty good… I like him. A lot.”

“Do you?”

Michael answered without hesitation. “Yup.”

“Anyways, can you start counting backwards from one-hundred for me? I need to make certain that you’re out for… don’t… attack…”

 

* * *

 

He was awake. He was awake, but his eyes wouldn’t open. His eyes wouldn’t open, and his arms wouldn’t lift up so he could rub at his eyes, and his back wouldn’t let him sit up. They would tremble and shake with the effort, and leave him tired. He could shake his head slightly from side to side, but doing so left him dizzy, despite having no sight at all.

A few minutes passed, and suddenly, he found his voice. He didn’t find his cognitive skills, however. When he attempted to ask where he was, all that came out was a garbled mess and jumble of vowels and syllables.

“Whh… whaaa… ‘m eh…”

He shook his head a little more, and found that he could move it more. Light was beginning to creep in from past his eyelids, instead of a perpetual black ink. He furrowed his brow. He wanted to move. He wanted to get up. For what reason, he didn’t know, he just didn’t want to be laying down anymore.

He moved his right hand just enough to place it on his stomach, but couldn’t find the will to move it any further. He could feel himself shaking with the strain to attempt to sit up, but he couldn’t, and it was frustrating him. What was he supposed to do?

“Cuuuhhh… C-Caaahmm ahnn…”

Then, his left hand was taken a hold of.

Michael stopped moving, relaxing against the bed beneath him again. Warm. That was his primary thought about the hand that was holding his. Warm. He squeezed a little. Rough. It was rough. This wasn’t his wife’s hand. Jimmy? Jimmy hadn’t worked a day in his life. His hands were like a baby’s. Not Tracey’s.

He decided to stop thinking about it. It just felt nice. There was someone at his side. There wasn’t supposed to be someone at his side, but there was now. He simply accepted it, embraced it. It was a pleasant surprise.

Eventually, Michael regained enough control of his body to attempt to wake fully again. His eyes fluttered open, squinting against the harsh hospital light. His sight adjusted quickly, and he turned to look at the person who was by his side holding his hand. He recoiled slightly in surprise.

Trevor.

His head had been bowed before, as if in sleep, but at Michael’s sudden movement, he glanced up. He did look tired, but as he saw Michael, awake and well, his expression shifted into one of relief, the harsh edges of his crow’s feet softening and his mouth parting in a silent sigh.

“Morning, Sleeping Ugly,” he said, a slight smile teasing the corner of his lips.

“Is it morning?” Michael looked around the room, but there were no windows.

“Uh, n-no,” Trevor stuttered slightly. “It’s actually… it’s actually, uh… one thirty. In the morning. So I guess it’s technically morning, but, you know, most people still consider it night. I do.”

Michael grunted, looking down at his right arm. There was gauze wrapped tightly around where they’d inserted the balloon to inflate his clogged artery. A small dot of blood was the only sign that he’d been truly “injured.” They were in a small room, away from the other patients who were still groggy and waking up from their own procedures. The walls were soft, pastel orange, with broad white stripes, and there was an old outdated television in the far corner. It was a typical hospital room. Nothing out of the ordinary. The persistent, melodic beeping of his heart monitor was what primarily broke the line between this whole scenario being reality or some sort of movie.

Michael returned his attention to Trevor, looking at where their hands were joined with narrowed eyes. Trevor was still holding his hand. He tugged a little.

“You can let go now,” he coughed.

Trevor took a long moment to comply, begrudgingly letting his hand slip out of Michael’s. The whole time, his gaze didn’t leave Michael’s. Michael didn’t break eye contact, either, not wanting to make the situation any more awkward.

“How did you know I was here?” Michael asked, sitting up slightly. “I didn’t text you or nothin’.”

Trevor leaned back in his seat. “I’m friends with Jimmy on Lifeinvader. His status update was pretty fucking cryptic. Saying you were having heart problems without really clarifying, or clarifying well. I assumed the worst.”

Michael groaned, head falling back on the pillow beneath him. “Of fucking course you actively stalk me through my children. Why did I expect anything less?”

“Excuse me, I didn’t know I wasn’t allowed to be a concerned friend.” Trevor snapped at Michael, but toned it back immediately. “What the hell happened to you?” he asked softly. “The doctors wouldn’t fucking tell me. Patient confidentiality or something, and Jimmy’s posts did not shed any light whatsoever besides a bunch of fear-mongering and rabble-rousing.”

Michael shook his head. Leave it to Jim to leave out crucial information to have his fifteen minutes of fame. “Just some heart murmurs they related to a small heart attack,” Michael informed him. “Big enough to need operating, small enough that they didn’t have to cut in to me. I’m okay dude. Where were you even when you heard the news?”

“Some Mexican place along Strawberry Avenue.” Trevor shook his head, looking into Michael’s eyes with deep concern. Michael knew what was coming before he even opened his mouth.

“Jesus, Michael, I fucking thought-- I thought I-- When I saw you were coming here and I didn’t know anything more, I assumed--”

“That you were gonna lose me again.”

Trevor looked away and swallowed thickly. Michael let his head drop again and closed his eyes.

“The last thing I’m gonna let fucking kill me is a Goddamn heart attack, T. That is  _ not  _ the way I am leaving this world.”

“Well how the fuck am I supposed to know that?” Trevor barked. “How are  _ you  _ supposed to know that? If you knew that, then you would have known you were gonna get a mini-condom forcibly stuffed in your arteries today and you would have done something to stop  _ that _ .”

Michael couldn’t help himself; he laughed at Trevor’s unique description of the procedure he had just went through, which only served to make Trevor even more angry.

“You think this is fucking funny? Fuck you! I lost  _ everything  _ when you died! You are  _ everything  _ to me! You're all I have left in this fucked up existence, and you think it’s fucking funny that you could die and leave me alone?! I already lost you once, you sack of fat shit, I…”

Michael had stopped laughing at this point, and he was aptly listening to Trevor. The crazed man’s ears turned a shade of pink, and he cleared his throat and looked away.

“I don’t think I’d have the will to live anymore if I lost you again.”

That struck a chord with Michael. His smile faded away and his eyes drooped with melancholy. Despite his trembling limbs, he managed to scoot himself closer to Trevor, whose head perked up at the movement as he watched Michael.

“Give me your hand.”

Trevor obeyed without question, looking down as Michael grabbed his wrist, and brought Trevor’s hand to rest on his chest. It was cheesy, and stupid as shit, but sometimes, that was the best way to get through to Trevor.

“Feel that? It’s still beating, T. It may not be what it used to be, but I’m sure your heart isn’t doing much better, either. It’s still going. I can’t fully control when I die. No one can. That ain’t something you can predict. You can delay, but it’s inevitable. It may catch me off guard one day, and that ain’t preventable. But I’m still here right now. Focus on that, and not what could have been. Be glad, because I’m still here, and I’m not going anywhere right now. Not if I can help it.”

He searched Trevor’s face for any sign of understanding or acceptance, but his face was immobile, trained only on his hand placed over Michael’s heart. Michael could feel a subtle trembling where Trevor was touching him now that he had stopped speaking. His head drooped, until Michael couldn’t see his face, and his entire frame began to shake.

“Just… please… please don’t leave me. You’re… you’re all I have.”

Trevor lifted his head. Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes, but he blinked them away before they could trickle down his cheeks. Michael lifted his hand to take a hold of Trevor’s, and he ran his thumb reassuringly over the back of his hand.

“I won’t.”

Trevor lifted Michael’s hand in his, placing it against the side of his head. His eyes fluttered shut at the warmth. They remained like that for a long moment, frozen in time, bound by a single heartbeat and the one place their bodies were connected.

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr: the-female-gaymer.tumblr.com


End file.
